Court extends custody for athlete accused of killing student

The court rules to extend custody for Mirzayev to December 17

MOSCOW, October 13 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow's Presnya court on Wednesday extended custody to December 17 for world mixed martial arts champion Rasul Mirzayev, accused of delivering a fatal blow to a student.

"The court rules to extend custody for Mirzayev to December 17," judge Tatyana Vasyuchenko announced. She underlined that that she found "the investigator's petition requesting custody extension "legitimate and substantiated."

The judge objected to the investigator's demand that custody be extended until February 17, 2012. The court regards this term as unreasonable and excessive," she said explaining that the investigation would have been completed long before then.

"A reasonable term is two months," the judge said.

Mirzayev's lawyer Igor Dergachyov told Tass that he would appeal the Wednesday ruling at the Moscow City Court. He said the ruling was not surprising. "I didn't even expect them to extend custody by two months only, I assumed they'd rule on four straight months," he noted.

Mirzayev, as he was being led out of the courtroom, smiled at his friends and exchanged a couple of phrases with them.

Lawyer Alexei Grebensky told reporters that Mirzayev had been in low spirits after the incident. But physically, the two-month custody has not affected his health. "You've seen him - his health is normal. Earlier, he requested aid from remand prison medics over not very serious things. So his condition of health has not worsened and cannot be an obstacle to his custody," the lawyer said.

The incident occurred in Brodnikov Pereulok in central Moscow on August 13. Student Ivan Agafonov was rushed to hospital after a punch delivered by Mirzayev and died several days later without regaining consciousness. The investigators learned from media reports that Mirzayev was the attacker.

The all Russia Sambo Federation said Rasul Mirzayev had been disqualified.

"Athlete Rasul Mirzayev has been disqualified by decision of the all-Russia Sambo Federation and withdrawn from training for the world combat sambo championship in Vilnius on November 10-14," the Federation said.

Mirzayev's lawyers said the student had died not from the blow but because he hit his head on the asphalt as he fell. In that event, the charges should be changed from malicious infliction of grave harm to health resulting in negligent death (which envisions up to 15 years in prison) to causing negligent death which is punished by up to two years in jail.

Mirzayev's lawyer Dergachyov denied the reports that his client has multi-million contracts. He said the defence was ready to pass to the investigator or the court Mirzayev's foreign travel passport which had no valid visas at present.

He also claimed that it was Agafonov who had provoked the conflict and started the fight.

On August 22, Moscow's Zamoskvorechye court released Mirzayev on a 5-million-rouble bail, but the Moscow City court overturned the ruling the next day, before the money was transferred to the court's deposit account and ordered the Zamoskvorechye court to reconsider the measure of restraint.

The court then met the investigator's petition to sanction Mirzayev's arrest.

Meanwhile, investigators have been carrying out a complex and a genetic test within the case.

"The complex expert examination will ascertain the cause of the young man's death. An autopsy found that student Ivan Agafonov, 19, had died of a closed craniocerebral injury, but whether or not he was injured by Mirzayev's blow or by hitting his head off on asphalt depends on the result of the complex expert examination," earlier reports said.

The genetic test will ascertain whose blood was found at the scene. The results of the expert examinations are due in about a month.